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Mending fences can be fun

Poet Carl Sandburg once famously wrote “Love your neighbor, but don’t take down the fence.”

My landscape architect friend and collaborator Rick Griffin and I are planning a tiny garden demonstration for an outdoor festival and grappling over what kind of fence to set up. We eschew traditional materials. I mean, anyone can set up a board wall.

But a fence doesn’t have to be just a flat surface any more than a hedge has to be one kind of sheared shrub. And who wants to stare at a blank wall anyway? Very few people can resist hanging pictures or putting a bookshelf on a wall; outdoors should be no different.

Around my own garden, I have three kinds of fences, partly for privacy, partly for security for my water garden and other features, and partly for aesthetics, including blocking out city sounds. One is made of cedar boards, but another is corrugated silver roofing tin. And I have a section of old-fashioned, loopy woven wire, the precursor to modern chain-link, which I got from my great-grandmother’s garden, funky gates and all.

Taking a cue from Rick’s curvy, tin fence in my front garden, my son and I cut the tops of the back fences like a roller coaster to hide some views, including neighbors’ windows and patios and porch lights, while revealing other views like nice trees in neighboring yards. We stained the boards a kind of teal green, which really sets off but visually disappears behind my plants. The boards are spaced out a bit to allow cool breezes through.

But my most important fences are actually “baffles,” which are sort of partial fence sections placed here and there as needed. They don’t go all the way to the ground and only as high as I need to screen specific views. Think of using your hand to shield your eyes from the sun, and do it in the garden with a bit of lattice between two posts. These are particularly valuable in tight neighborhoods where privacy is needed but high fences may not be allowed. Fast and inexpensive, they can be toned down with finials, paint and a vine.

You can also hang old windows like fences, or use burlap or other fabric and hang shelves for potted plants and garden knick-knacks, just like you do indoors. Main thing is, a fence can be cool without being un-neighborly.

To email Felder Rushing, go to www.felderrushing.net.

Weekend Garden Tips:

Prune azaleas, spirea, flowering quince, and other spring blooming shrubs and vines, and tip prune new blueberry growth, to give them time to sprout compact growth and flower buds before fall.

If you have a water garden with a fountain or waterfall, set the pump up off the floor of the pool to help reduce clogging from sunken leaves and other debris. Make a mesh filter to go around it as well.